Thread by @karlajstrand

I'm excited for this one today! #asalh2020

Now a panel will be discussing ONE PERSON, NO VOTE by @ProfCAnderson. @LeahRigueur introduces Frederick C. Harris to begin. #asalh2020

Harris: This is an important book this election year. It covers tactics that prevent Black and other marginalized people from voting freely. Some new devices include voter ID laws, purging voter rolls, gerrymandering, spread of misinformation. All tactics lower voter turnout.

Harris: Misinformation increased w the 2016 election, mainly thru use of bots and thru Russian interference, esp on the side of Republicans. 2020 election is seeing same interference.

Harris and Rigueur give high praise to Anderson's earlier books, especially Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944–1955.

Rigueur: Encourages listeners to read books by Frederick C Harris and Brett Gadsden as well. Anderson identifies that the law and violence have been used to assault voting rights from Reconstruction through today. But perhaps Black voter depression is more insidious.

Rigueur: Black voter depression is hardest to identify and work against. Different from voter suppression: Anderson outlines this well in her book, outright attempts to bar people from voting. Voter depression is a strategy aimed at encouraging voters to stay home on election day

Rigueur: Voter depression includes encouraging people to vote third party, to tell people not to vote, that their vote doesn't matter, using social media to exploit white possibility or exploit Black apathy. Even posing as Black people or paying Black people to stump for tRump.

Rigueur: Social media ads targeting Black voters aren't often convincing them to vote FOR tRump, but to NOT vote for Clinton. These ads dampen enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton and encourage Black voters to stay home.

Rigueuer: People who use these tactics push illegitimacy of elections and the state. They are weaponized to work against elections and democracy. It fits quietly into a belief that illegitimacy, esp in state sanctioned violence.

Rigueur: Digital propaganda builds on existing beliefs, tensions, and fractions re: state, security, etc. of the Black community. The community sees state violence, oppression, etc. and digital propaganda only feeds these beliefs.

Brett Gadsden joins the discussion: Many mechanisms to suppress the Black vote were/are presented as racially neutral but they were/are actually racially precise. Disenfranchisement is a lot more normative than we admit or realize.

Gadsden: Considers ideas of the "disappearing minority voter" and the "appearing Black voter". Despite attempts to disenfranchise Black voters, they consistently resist. Marjorie Lawson coined this phrase of appearing Black voter.

Gadsden: "Appearing Black voters": = Disenfranchised voters represent the margin of victory and when mobilized to express their political will, can make a profound difference.

Anderson: The appearing Black voter is what increases techniques of voter suppression bc of the fear of the Black vote. Black vote can be transformative for society and so the work to shut them down increases. One of the new ways to do this is thru social media.

Anderson: Lots of misinformation on social media currently about mail-in ballots, for example. Particularly to get Black people to doubt validity of electoral process and thus not vote at all. Plays into the narrative of Black pathology, that Black people don't care enough.

Anderson: Voter suppression includes a multitude of strategies - poll taxes, literacy tests, good character clauses, voter ID laws, gerrymandering, etc. We fight back by voting. That's how we get the democracy back. Vote in who we want and then hold them accountable.

Anderson fields a question about QAnon: If you believe this, you aren't paying attention. Look beyond and see the embracing of white nationalism. Think critically about this regime and how they've damned near everybody.

Harris: Increased distrust in political institutions give rise to increase in BLM and similar resistance movements. You will also see a rise in voter suppression.

Anderson: 2016 was the first election in 50 years that happened without the protection of the Voting Rights Act. Black people are having to fight up and through obstacles in order to get to the ballot box. There are many reasons this current regime won; wasn't only Black vote.

Rigueur: Even Republicans know the power of the Black vote, it's why they try to hard to suppress it. Because we have become so used to Black people saving the democracy, even when it doesn't benefit them.

Anderson: Only have to depress enough of us in order to win. Preying on the divisions and tensions within Black community and larger society to maintain system in place; it has been our interventions that have moved the nation forward.

Anderson: Refers to these suppression/depression tactics as Jim Crow 2.0. Coalitions of orgs and volunteers can combat these tactics: set up a private car system to get people to/from the polls; help people check the rolls, esp to combat felony disenfranchisement.

Anderson: Have conversations within our community about the range of powers we have. The vote is an important component of those powers. We can't cede that power tRump. Don't fall prey to voter depression via voter suppression tactics.

Anderson: "I can't imagine being silent in the face of what this regime has planned for us." We can't be silent; we must mobilize. To start, we must vote. #asalh2020

Be sure to buy the book or get it from the library: ONE PERSON, NO VOTE by Carol Anderson @ProfCAnderson @ASALH @AsalhConvention #asalh2020

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